Talk:Density
Definition of density This page provides 3 definitions of densities: 1. (As it applies to liquids): Liquids with lower densities will float on top of liquids with higher densities. 2. The wheel test (using the wheel as a scale) 3. Falling speed The problem with using the 1st definition is that it only can be used to describe liquid density, and can't be applied to solids. The problem with the 2nd and 3rd tests is that they actually conflict in the following cases: 1. Bomb and stone: Bomb is denser in the wheel test, but lighter in the falling speed test. 2. Stone and superball: Stone is denser in the wheel test, and either denser or lighter in the falling speed test (depending on the distance it is allowed to fall). 3. Water and fireworks: Water is lighter in the wheel test, but denser in the falling test. 4. Any liquid and any other liquid: the falling test will indicate equal densities; the 2 other tests will not. As it appears to me: - An element's effect on wheel is independent of its falling speed (test 2 and test 3 are independent). - A liquid's tendency to float or sink through another liquid is independent of its falling speed (test 1 and test 3 are independent). - Though tests 1 and 2 are correlated--we can't use the wheel test or the mixing-liquids test to assign densities: soapy and water rank equally in the wheel test, but soapy appears "denser" than water in the mixing test. (Tests 1 and 2, though mostly the same, rely on different properties of the liquids) What I think should be done is this page should be split into 3, or possibly 4: 1. Liquid densities: this makes sense because the liquid test is unambiguous and gives results in the form of ordinal values that make sense (such as oil floating on water). The drawback to this is magma and acid can't be assigned liquid densities. I don't think this is an actual drawback because this "liquid density" is only meant to explain how liquids behave when mixed, and there would be very limited use of this behavior if the elements destroy each other anyway. 2. Wheel weight: I think this should really be a part of the wheel article, as the test yields a simple ordering of each element in terms of how sensitively the wheel reacts to each of them. This ordering is no longer true when applied to any other test outside of wheel. 3. Falling speed: this can be used to elaborate on things like terminal velocity and acceleration in superballs (stone accelerates too, but reaches the terminal velocity quickly). It can also be used to explain the non-uniform falling speed of powders vs bomb or superball. 4. A fourth article can be a table showing the correlations and inconsistencies between the 3 values. Sorry this was long; I didn't intend to write so much. But I think we should really split this. --Maybe Tomorrow (talk) 06:45, March 27, 2018 (UTC) : Interesting reading. We actually can have 2 methods on solving this: :# Split the pages as you suggested. :# Split the "Density" page into several sections, each introducing the different definitions. : Without any strong objections (give a few days for getting responce) you can pretty much go for the style you want yourself, but I suggest you make and indicate a firm position on the preferred style ASAP. You can even share your information here before making the changes in the main pages. I might throw in some support based on source-code reading if I have time but no guarantee on that (source codes are much more accessible now as they are written in JS, and loads of SR information here like are obtained by analysing the codes. PG codes are less analysed but I can try to make something out of it.). Ivan247 Talk Page 17:39, March 27, 2018 (UTC) :: Thanks for the input. I was thinking of how well this would work if liquid densities had their own article, but the problem is that the only real information to convey is mercury > nitro > seawater > soapy > water > oil, so I think it would be better as a subsection in the liquid article. :: As for the falling speed, I didn't notice there was already a good article for that. :: I think the wheel test would fit really well in the wheel article. In there, it should exist under a heading like "Wheel Sensitivity To Elements" or "Torque Generated By Various Elements". I'm not really sure about the title, but that can evolve as better ones are thought of. The great thing is this info outlines a huge use of wheel, so it makes sense to put it in that article. :: I like the idea of just splitting this article into different sections for each method. I can imagine having all of the info here in this article, and also spread across the wheel/falling speed/liquid articles, which would mean we would have redundant info across articles. That doesn't bother me that much, and we can always replace the redundant info with a link. --Maybe Tomorrow (talk) 07:51, March 29, 2018 (UTC)